Tamarack County

CHAPTER 37

That night, Henry Meloux returned to Tamarack County.

Cork, Anne, and Skye were still at the Aurora Community Hospital, waiting for the doctors to make a decision about when to operate on Stephen, who had not yet regained consciousness. Jenny had taken Waaboo home and put him to bed. Marsha Dross had given Deputy Reese Weber the job of standing guard at the O’Connor house, while she and the rest of the department tried to find Walter Frogg.

Soon after Cork had arrived at the hospital, one of the physicians, a doctor who said he was a hospitalist, had come to the waiting room. He’d shown Cork an X-ray of Stephen’s spine and explained that two bullets had entered Cork’s son. One had passed completely through his body, doing minimal damage.

“I was concerned that a bowel might have been nicked as the bullet traversed,” the hospitalist had said, “but the CT scan showed no fluid leakage. So at the moment, I believe that, in terms of that wound, we’re dealing with nothing that routine surgery won’t repair. The other bullet, however, apparently ricocheted off one of Stephen’s ribs and has become lodged in his spinal column. Here.” The doctor had pointed to a place on the X-ray. “Between the L-four and L-five vertebrae.”

Cork could see clearly the white bone image of the lumbar vertebrae and, nested between them, the small shape of the bullet, like a tick feeding on his son’s backbone. To remove the bullet, the doctor had explained, required more expertise than anyone at the community hospital possessed. He’d made arrangements to have Stephen airlifted to St. Luke’s Hospital in Duluth, which was a good Level II trauma center and where there were excellent surgeons who could perform this procedure. The hospitalist also told him that, in removing Stephen from the water and administering CPR, Deputy Pender may have exacerbated the situation, lodged the bullet more precariously against Stephen’s spinal cord.

This was information Cork knew he would do his best to keep from Pender.

He’d asked about the damage that may already have been done to Stephen’s spinal cord.

“It’s hard to say. We’ll know more when he regains consciousness and we talk to him. At the moment, I’m most concerned about reducing the swelling around his spinal column. That and dealing with his hemodynamic instability.”

“What’s that?”

“Basically, acute circulatory failure. His body has experienced enormous shocks. The bullets, the icy water, the drowning. His heart and his entire vascular system aren’t pushing blood along in the way they typically would, the way they need to for him to maintain normal body functioning.”

“You said, ‘when he regains consciousness.’ When will that be?”

“I can’t say, Mr. O’Connor. We’ll have to wait and see.”

They’d finally been allowed into Stephen’s room in the ICU. Skye sat with Anne, holding her hand. Anne’s eyes had often been closed, perhaps in prayer, though Cork couldn’t say for sure. He didn’t know where his younger daughter stood on the question of her faith at the moment. Him, he’d gone through a whole litany of silent supplications. Stephen hadn’t moved the entire time. Partly, this was because he’d been fitted with braces that immobilized him in order to prevent any movement that might contribute to spinal cord damage. But it was also because he still hadn’t regained consciousness. He lay hooked to a big monitoring device. An IV drip tube ran from a packet of clear liquid to a needle inserted in his left arm. Taped into the crook of his right arm was another needle, capped, through which necessary drugs and medications could be easily administered.

At one point, Skye said, “Does anyone want coffee?”

Cork told her yes, and thanked her. Anne shook her head.

When Skye left, Cork said, “She’s a good friend, Annie.”

“Friend?” Anne looked at him, so tired that all the emotion seemed wrung out of her. “She’s more than that, Dad. We’re in love.”

Cork finally understood the secret, which, he figured, everyone except him had known almost from the beginning of Anne’s homecoming. Perhaps it should have felt more momentous, but it simply made him sad. What he wanted for Anne, what any parent wants for his child, was for her to be happy. Yet loving Skye and Skye loving her only seemed to have made Anne uncertain and conflicted and afraid. It had sent her running from the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, sent her running home.

“I like her,” Cork said. Then he said, “Do you know what you’ll do, Annie? Stay with the sisters or go with Skye?”

She bent forward in her chair, as if a great weight lay on her back. The hospital window was behind her, black night beyond the glass. “I’ve offered myself to God,” she said. “I’ve promised that if Stephen lives, I’ll give my life back to the Church.”

“You really believe God deals that way?”

“I don’t know what to believe anymore. I’ve never been so confused. There are moments when I wonder if this isn’t God’s way of punishing me.”

“God would use Stephen to take out his anger at you? Oh, Annie.”

He’d been sitting a dozen feet away. He got up from his chair, crossed the hospital room, and sat down next to Anne. He put his arm around his daughter’s shoulders, drew her to him, and laid his cheek against her hair. He understood exactly why she would bargain with God. If he thought it was possible, he’d have struck any deal necessary-with God or the Devil-to make sure Stephen didn’t die. If there were a way, he’d have crawled into that hospital bed himself and traded places with his son.

“When you left to be with the sisters, I remember how happy you were.” His breath, as he whispered, made her hair ripple as if in a gentle breeze. “I’d love to see you that happy again. I don’t care whether it’s with Skye or with the sisters.”

Skye returned with coffee in two disposable cups. Cork kissed the top of his daughter’s head and gave Skye back her place next to Anne.

* * *

It was late, and the hospital had become a quiet place. Anne and Skye had gone back to the waiting area, where the chairs were more comfortable and where there was a couch in case one of them wanted to lie down and sleep a bit. Cork had been sitting alone, going over and over in his mind LaPointe’s story, trying to come to terms with his own part in what was almost certainly the conviction of an innocent man, trying to wrap his understanding around the place LaPointe had come to, which despite all the walls that surrounded him, was, he claimed, exactly the place he preferred to be. How many people at the end of their lives could say with true conviction that concrete walls and iron bars didn’t, in fact, a prison make? The only man besides LaPointe that Cork could imagine responding in this same way was Henry Meloux.

And no sooner had he thought this than Meloux appeared. Cork had his head down and didn’t realize the Mide had come into the ICU room until he felt the old man’s hand on his shoulder and heard the familiar voice say quietly, “Boozhoo, Corcoran O’Connor.”

Cork looked up from the white linoleum and found Meloux’s face, a thousand wrinkles the color of wet creek sand, set with eyes as dark as pecan shells and soft with compassion.

“Henry?” He didn’t try to hide his surprise.

“I thought you might like company in this long night.”

“How did you get here from Thunder Bay?”

“My son,” Meloux replied.

“Hank? He’s here?”

“With your daughter and her friend in the waiting area. I wanted to see you and Stephen by myself.”

The old man walked to Stephen’s bedside. He laid his hand on the white sheet where it covered Stephen’s heart. Cork’s son and the old Mide shared a special bond. Many times over the years, Meloux had worked to help heal wounds that life had delivered to Stephen, both physical and spiritual, and recently, under Meloux’s guidance, Stephen had undertaken the first learning steps in becoming, like Meloux, a member of the Grand Medicine Society.

“It’s bad,” Cork said. “Stephen still has a bullet in him, pressing against his spinal cord. They need to operate, but he’s too unstable at the moment. He died, Henry, and they brought him back.”

“But not all the way. He still stands with one foot on the Path of Souls.” Meloux turned back to Cork. “Would you leave him with me? Alone?”

“What are you going to do, Henry?”

“Talk to him.”

“You think he can hear you?”

“We will see.” Meloux looked at him deeply with those dark eyes that could pierce a man’s soul. “I’ve come to help, Corcoran O’Connor. I’ve come to help you all, if you will let me.”

Cork had held himself together because he had to, because Annie and Jenny and Stephen needed him to be strong. But Meloux was here now, and Cork knew exactly what his old friend and mentor was saying to him. Meloux may have been old-God alone knew his exact age-but inside he was still the strongest man Cork had ever known. On more than one occasion, he’d saved Cork’s life and, more times than Cork could remember, had salvaged his spirit. For the first time since Stephen had been shot, Cork finally allowed himself to feel the full depth of his own fear and pain and confusion, and tears welled up and spilled down his cheeks.

“I let him go out there alone, Henry,” Cork confessed. “I should have been there with him. I could have kept this from happening.”

Meloux stepped to him. “This was not your doing, Corcoran O’Connor. If you throw yourself onto the fire of guilt, it will be a useless sacrifice. We do not know, any of us, the Great Mystery’s purpose in this. But purpose there is.” He put his old hand gently to Cork’s chest. “You have a good heart, here, a strong heart. Of all that you have given to your son, that is the greatest gift. Trust your heart and Stephen’s.” He smiled in such a reassuring way that Cork couldn’t help but believe him. “And trust me, Corcoran O’Connor.”

So full of gratitude he could barely speak, Cork said, “Migwech, Henry. Chi migwech.”